How Does Hosseini Use Rape In The Kite

In The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini uses the kite and rape to show Amir's guilt and search for redemption. The kite in this book represents Amir's happiness and guilt. Amir claimed, "That was the thing about kite flying, your mind drifted with the kite" (Hosseini 63) because for a second he would forget about his troubles and think about the good times. It was shown that Amir has always been jealous that his own father likes Hassan more than his own son and wants to be able to connect like Baba and Hassan and he then stated, "If I changed my mind and asked for a bigger and fancier kite, Baba would buy it for me - but then he'd buy it for Hassan too. Sometimes I wished he wouldn't do that. Wished he'd let me be the favorite." (Hosseini 51)

While he leaves Hassan to be attacked and raped by the boys he does what his father didn't want Amir to do and Hosseini stated that, "Hassan was standing at the blind end of the alley in a defiant stance: fists curled, legs slightly apart. Behind him, sitting on piles of scrap and rubble, was the blue kite. My key to Baba's heart." (Hosseini 71) it shows how he sacrifices his "best friend" because he wants his father to be proud of him. But when it's all over Amir feels guilty and he can't hold it in, he believes that seeing Hassan is making it worse so he lies to get Hassan fired and Hassan lies to protect Amir even though Amir has been a terrible friend. Later on, Hassan begins to redeem himself when he doesn't care what Baba thinks anymore, when Baba is being crazy in the Grocery store Amir doesn't just sit there, he stops his father and does the right thing and apologizes and doesn't blame Baba instead he blames himself and it shows that he is becoming more selfless. The kite for Amir will always be a reminder of his

While he was leaving Hassan to get raped he shows what was going on in his head by saying, "I actually aspired to cowardice, because the alternative, the real reason I was running, was that Assef was right: Nothing was free in this world. Maybe Hassan was the price I had to pay, the lamb I had to slay, to win Baba. Was it a fair price? The answer floated to my conscious mind before I could thwart it: He was just a Hazara, wasn’t he?" (Hosseini 77) Amir later on can't face what he did and lies to get Hassan to leave. When they move to America Amir tries to forget and put the what he did in the past. He then mets Soraya and falls in love with her and she helps him let go of a little bit of guilt because she tells him about how when she was younger she ran off with a man and got caught and sent back home. Amir states, “But I think a big part of the reason I didn’t care about Soraya’s past was that I had one of my own. I knew all about regret” (Hosseini